Because Everybody Else Has One

I'm somewhat swamped with paid work right now, but I needed to jot down some of my thoughts about Martin Scorsese's latest juggernaut of a film. And by "jot", I mean I'm mostly just going to expand slightly on the comment that I already made on Mark Kermode's review of the film on YouTube. In very short, I think there's a brilliant two-hour, even two-and-a-half, long movie buried in here, but I found the punishing runtime to be very much to the film's detriment. Especially the middle section, which focuses almost entirely on a succession of murders, which just dragged and dragged. It also had a major problem in that Lily Gladstone's character, Molly, was the only really sympathetic or, to be honest, well-drawn character out of the main cast. Frankly it was only in the final hour that I became at all invested in DiCaprio's Eugene, which is a major problem considering he's clearly the film's main protagonist and POV character. And while D...

The other half of the Barbeheimer phenomenon, Oppenheimer, hasn't been quite as controversial as Barbie, but it has still drawn some controversy. Not controversy about the morality of atomic warfare, of course, but about Florence Pugh's nude scenes. Because that's the world we're living in, I guess. But I begin with a digression. Much like Barbie, there's probably not a ton to be said about Oppenheimer at this point, except to say that it's every bit as good as people are saying. Still, I'm going to take a run at it. What stands out most about Oppenheimer is how much it's both very much a Christopher Nolan film and quite a radical departure for him. Yes, loads of the old Nolan tropes are present and accounted for: multiple timelines, an epic scope, trouble writing female characters, practical effects shot on IMAX cameras, a booming and intentionally over-stuffed soundtrack, and of course, Cillian Murphy, finally taking centre stage.  On the other hand, i...

Another biggie this week - and it's not even the only film really worth seeing this week. I may cover it at some point - there's a bunch of great films that came out this year that I haven't reviewed and I really should do a roundup of all of them towards the end of the year and things slow down - but do check out Searching if you get the chance. It's really good. Anyway, this review, like all of those that I've been doing of late, is up on Channel 24 too. What it’s about Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon and this is the story of how he got there. From dealing with the death of his young daughter in 1961 through returning as a hero after completing the first successful, manned mission to the moon in July 1969, we see Armstrong struggling to come to terms with his loss even as each step that brings him closer to the moon is littered with obstacles, both practical and emotional. What we thought Quite unlike Hidden Figures and less ev...

Oops, nearly forgot to post this. And undeservedly too for such a thoroughly charming little movie, albeit one with a very un-charming and very un-little title. The review has been up on Channel 24 all weekend, though! What it’s about The year is 1946 and Juliet Ashton is a successful writer still struggling to come to terms with what she lost in the war and is desperate to write something that matches the gravity of what she and her country had just been through, rather than the flights of fancy on which she made her name. When she receives a letter out of the blue from a pig farmer on the small island of Guernsey, only recently liberated from the Nazis, she finds exactly what she’s looking for – and a whole lot more as her investigation leads to her becoming drawn into the lives of the members of Guernsey’s mysterious book club, the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, as it becomes clear that there’s a lot more to their story than anyone seems keen to let on. What w...

Proving once again that importance, self-seriousness, and timeliness are not, in any way shape or form, enough to make a bad film good. This review is also up on Channel 24 What it's about In the weeks leading up to the infamous '90s LA Riots, sparked by the vicious beating of a black man, Rodney King, by a group of white police officers and the ultimate acquittal of the cops responsible, a woman and her large group of foster children are drawn further and further into the racially-motivated chaos that ensues. What we thought Ever since winning her best actress Oscar for her role in Monster's Ball, Halle Berry has ricocheted from one terrible movie to another. Starting with the truly abysmal Catwoman back when film studios didn't realize that faithfulness to their source material was a large part of what made comic book films work, it has become an unwritten rule that Berry's name in the credits all but guarantees a lousy film. I wish I could s...

Solid stuff but, I hate to say it, they made the wrong film. This review is also on Channel 24 What it's about The year is 1982 and it is ten years since the day that Mason Skiles' life fell apart. As the US ambassador to Lebanon in the early 1970s, Skiles and his wife were living the high life in Beirut until she was killed in a terrorist attack perpetrated by the brother of the young orphan, Karim, who was living under their care. Now an alcoholic, working as a small-time labour negotiator, Skiles is called upon by the CIA to once again head back to Beirut to secure the release of an old friend: a CIA operative with in-depth knowledge of the Agency's operations in Lebanon who is being held by a renegade group of terrorists with a single demand, the release of the very man responsible for the death of Skiles' wife. What we thought The very definition of solid, Beirut, which is written and directed by veteran scribe, Tony Gilroy, is a perfectly com...

Exceptional? Maybe not. But pretty worth seeing. This review is also up on Channel 24 What it's about Set during the height of World War 2 where Adolf Hitler had effectively exiled the German monarch, Kaiser Wilhelm, and his wife to the Netherlands to “wait out the war”, a young soldier is assigned to the Kaiser's home as head of security but whose main mission is to spy on the household and to report any seditious, anti-Nazi activities going on there. He quickly falls for a bold, outspoken housemaid who has plenty of secrets of her own – not least of all being that is Jewish. What we thought Despite its setting and its plot, it would be a stretch to call the Exception a “Holocaust film” - both because it only touches on the Holocaust and the rampant anti-Semitism going on in Europe at the time and because these truly dark historic events are used mostly as context for the story it's trying to tell, rather than the story itself. The result is a film th...

Keeping with the format I adopted last time, my review of the Birth of a Nation comes from Channel 24 and, exclusive to this blog, are another two films that released on Friday that deserve at least a mention.  (Sorry this is a bit extremely late... holiday laziness...) What it's about The (mostly) true story of Nat Turner, the slave/ preacher who used his influence to incite a bloody uprising against slave owners in the American South. What we thought Despite intentionally “stealing back” its name from the groundbreaking but morally despicable 1915 D.W. Griffiths film, the Birth of a Nation mostly exists in the long shadow of 12 Years a Slave, the multiple-award-winning modern masterpiece that set a new bar for films about slavery. Sadly for it and its now infamous writer/ director/ star, Nate Parker, it doesn't come anywhere close to matching that film's emotional power, its complex intelligence or its quietly brilliant filmmaking. This isn't ...

This Jew's take on the apparently almost entirely made up story of a very, very young Jesus Christ! What could go wrong? This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about As he and his family return to Judea/ Israel after years in exile in Egypt, Jesus Bar Joseph, aged seven, has to come to terms with his strange powers and the even stranger circumstances surrounding his birth. What we thought As a reasonably observant Jew, I am, most decidedly, not the target audience of the Young Messiah. And yet, that doesn't necessarily mean that the film didn't have a chance in hell of working for me. For a start, though I don't believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah or the so-called Son of God, I do find the whole story of Jesus to be pretty damn good mythology. I don't care much for it religiously, in other words, but as a fan of great stories, it's certainly one of the better ones. And historically, it's really interesting too. Further, y...

A Royally Silly Night Out. This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about Based (extremely) loosely on the true story of how Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret joined the common folk in their celebrations of V.E. Day, 1945. What we thought A Royal Night Out is, in absolutely no uncertain terms, utter nonsense. Not only does this “historical dramedy” have really very little do with any events that ever actually happened (the princesses apparently did little more than stand outside the palace gates on V.E night and were home by 1:00 AM), it also has very little of any real merit as a piece of storytelling. Basically a posher take on something like Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist or After Hours, it's very silly, very shallow and very ill disciplined in terms of both plotting and tone. It's also, however, quite a lot of fun. The real story, of course, would have been quite boring so it's understandable that they invented much o...

Oh, how wrong things can go. This review is also up at Channel 24 . What it's about George Pemberton's thriving timber empire is threatened by the pressures of the Great Depression, but when he meets and marries the enigmatic Serena, things take a turn – but perhaps not in the ways he was expecting. What we thought Serena should really have been something special. Based on a beloved novel, it reunites the wonderful Jennifer Lawrence with her increasingly impressive Silver Linings Playbook co-star, Bradley Cooper, for a thematically rich and complex period-drama, directed by Susanne Bier, an Oscar-winning Danish filmmaker. And it is something special. As long as by “special” you mean a stunning and singular example of a calamity of a film that is infinitely less than the sum of its parts. Serena had absolutely everything going for it but the result is a disastrous mess and one of the year's most tedious, dirge-like and frankly badly told movies...

There's no "Rock Angels" in sight here... but Exodus: Gods and Kings is all the worse for it. This review is also up at Channel 24 .  What it's about You know the story. Sent down the Nile river in a basket to avoid Pharoah's decree of the drowning of all baby boys new-born to their Jewish (or “Israelite”) slaves, Moses was saved by Pharaoh's daughter who raised him as her own in Pharaoh's court. As he grows older though, Moses is made aware of his alien lineage and through a particularly uncanny encounter with a burning bush, his destiny is revealed to him: to stand up and lead his nation out of their bondage in Egypt to the promised land of Canaan. What we thought As a practicing Jew, I am, shall we say, quite familiar with the story of Moses and the Exodus from Egypt. It's an event that is seen as perhaps the crucial moment in the formation of the Jewish people and is not only alluded to constantly in Jewish prayers, it is som...

And now for the true story of - Nah I can't even complete that sentence... This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about Making the most of a legend that he helped propagate, Hercules is an apparently very mortal man who, with his small band of mercenaries, suddenly finds himself leading a ragtag army of peasants and farmers against bloodthirsty marauders who threaten to tear down the entire kingdom of Thrace. What we thought Brett Ratner is a director who has long been considered one of the more notorious hacks in Hollywood; a guy who producers call in when they need something knocked out in very short notice after the proper filmmaker attached to the project bails out. It's a reputation that he seems to have mostly earned on the (de)merits of X-Men: The Last Stand alone – a truly dire franchise-killer (or, in this case, attempted killer) that “proper” filmmakers like Bryan Singer and Matthew Vaughn have spent years trying to correct. ...

No need for a roundup this week, as this is the only other film I've seen of this week's meager selection. I missed the screening for the Grandmaster (general reaction: pretty but lame) and Winnie Mandela wasn't press screened for critics, was filmed four or five years ago and looks to be a cheaper version of Long Walk to Freedom so I wouldn't exactly hold my breath for it being any good. Speaking of not being any good... Zack Snyder's adaptation of 300, Frank Miller's Dark Horse graphic novel, was a stylish, deliriously goofy take on the Ancient Greek legend of the three-hundred Spartan warriors that alone kept overwhelming Persian forces at bay. It was dumb, it was corny and it was, of course, one of the most homoerotic action films ever made - which is really saying something - and it garnered for itself quite the fan base. This was 2006, after all, and Frank Miller hadn't quite burned his good name entirely (unless you happened to be a major Batma...

Finishing off this week's releases... Anchorman 2. I really wanted to like Anchorman 2. I was a big fan of the original when it came out and I am a fan of a number of the people involved in the film. Unfortunately, whether it's a simple case of sequelitis or the fact that what once seemed so fresh now feels so stale thanks to constant repetition in other McKay-Farrell vehicles, Anchorman 2 is too long, too scattershot and nowhere near funny enough. There are some chuckles to be had, to be sure, but they're cancelled out by far too many stretches of uncomfortable silence and the only sharply satirical bit that has to do with the current state of news was handled better in the movie Network, which came out more than three decades ago. (4/10) The Monuments Men. Speaking of disappointments, despite the stellar cast, interesting story (with its central thesis about the worth of art over human lives) and impossible-to-escape Clooney likability, The Monuments Men is a, wel...

I may, as always, have some catching up to do but there was no way that I wasn't going to give at least a quick look into one of the past year's best and most important films. Giving my highest of highest recommendations to Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave may come with the caveat that it is a truly grueling, almost physically difficult film to sit through, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't earn every one of those ten stars and it certainly doesn't mean that you shouldn't race out to see it - just be prepared for a cinematic experience that is anything but fun. In the same way that Schindler's List was far from the first film to deal with the Holocaust but has gone down as the one Holocaust film that everyone needs  to see, 12 Years a Slave will very possibly go down as the quintessential American slavery film. Also, like Schindler's List, this astonishingly true tale of Solomon Northop (played here with understated, mesmeric brilliance by...

And now for part two of the dullest Japanese/ American double bill to come along in a very long time... This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about Following the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II, General Douglas MacArthur (Tommy Lee Jones), the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, is tasked with investigating the Japanese Emperor Hirohito's part in the war. To do so he enlists the aid of General Bonner Fellers (Matthew Fox), the foremost expert on Japanese culture but along with holding the fate of the revered Emperor in his hands, he has another mission in Japan that is far more personal. What we thought You wait all year for a Japanese-based American film to come along when suddenly two come along at once. Along with the decidedly more populist 47 Ronin (which is in crappy 3D and everything!), we have Emperor, a film destined for the art circuit, but one that frankly doesn't even deserve even the limited cinematic release it is recei...

I have some good films (as well as a best of the year roundup) to talk about soon but first... This review is also up at Channel 24    What it's about Based on the old Japanese legend, a small band of outlawed Samurai seek revenge against the vicious shogun who killed their master and stole his kingdom away from him. What we thought You wait all year for a Japanese-based American film to come along when suddenly two come along at once. While Emperor lulls its audience to sleep over at the art circuit, 47 Ronin takes an ancient Japanese legend and smacks its own audience over the head with it hard enough for the overall effect to be much the same. 47 Ronin has none of Emperor's good intentions or historic interest, but it is also a look at a culture with which most Western audiences would only be, at best, vaguely acquainted and one that presumably is wildly different from the one in which most modern day Japanese live. As such, the fascinatingly alien nature of...

Just a few words about a movie that isn't afraid to flaunt its ambition. The Butler uses the well-worn and normally pretty effective trope of examining large swaths of history through the life of a single character. In movie terms, the most famous and best example of this is Forrest Gump (I don't care what its detractors say, Forrest Gump is a modern masterpiece) but, though The Butler is clearly going for a similar, if decidedly less irreverent, effect, it's nowhere near as good. The history being examined this time centres around the lead up to and the fallout from the American Civil Rights movement that reached its apex in the 1960s, with the character through whose eyes we view these tumultuous times is Cecil Gaines, the eponymous butler who, while working in the White House since the 1950s, saw presidents come and go and major changes sweep the country. It's a smart premise, but the film fails to entirely deliver on its premise. The history it deals with...

With Tower Heist out of the way, there are only a further two films that I need to take a look at from last week. I do want to catch up with Attack the Block at some point but, for now, here's my thoughts on the first of two fairly noteworthy films. The tagline on the poster kind of says it all but Anonymous explores a fairly simple conceit in a rather convoluted way: did William Shakespeare actually write all the plays and sonnets that bare his name or was William Shakespeare simply an actor who used his name as a way of protecting the reputation of the works' true author, an aristocrat named Edward De Vere, The Earl of Oxford, in an ultra-puritanical England? It's a very interesting conceit that the film does its best to make a strong case for its validity but the more you think about it, the more it shows itself to be nothing but silly, utterly unprovable conjecture. More interestingly still, is the way the film explores the way Shakespeare-or-whoever's pla...